Stoked to have our article on responsible innovation of algorithms for the digital energy era featured on the cover of Nature Energy. Full text is available for free using this link https://rdcu.be/cpu0G
Feature on cover of Nature Energy
Energy stored in electric car batteries could power your home or stabilise the grid — and save you money
A very well researched piece by James Purtill for Catalyst in ABC Online https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-08-10/v2g-vehicle-to-grid-pays-ev-owners-for-electricity/100353072
Until recently, Gary Hogben did not expect he would ever be paid to simply plug his car into the wall every night.
And yet, over the past year, that’s exactly what’s happened. He and his wife have earned more than $1,000 while their car sits in the driveway.
The service is called V2G, or “vehicle to grid”, and it could be an important component of Australia’s electricity grid in coming years, plus a way for car owners to make a little extra income.
The concept is fairly straightforward: electric vehicles (EVs) are essentially very large batteries on wheels. Most of the time they sit idle.
Continue readingSolar Analytics acquires SunTenants
Solar Analytics – which specialises in data and monitoring devices – has expanded its business into offering solar for renters, launching Solar for Rentals, following its acquisition of Sydney-based start-up SunTenants earlier in the year.
The Solar for Rentals offering includes a calculator that can be used by both tenants and landlords to estimate the value of a rooftop solar installation and determine what a “fair” increase to a property’s rent may be.
When paired with Solar Analytics system performance monitoring dashboard, Solar for Renters is able to provide a transparent platform for both landlords and tenants that should help breakdown the confusion that can come with installing a solar system on a rental property.
Continue readingOne Step Off The Grid – SuRF project announcement
A new project led by the Australian National University will assess the feasibility of transitioning regional New South Wales communities from grids exposed to bushfires and other natural disasters to a resilient network of islandable renewables and battery-based microgrids.
The Southcoast Microgrid Reliability Feasibility (SµRF) project was last week named as one of 20 projects around Australia to be awarded a share of $25.6 million in funding via round two of the federal government’s Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund.
The project is being led the Battery Storage and Grid Integration Program at ANU in partnership with the Southcoast Health and Sustainability Alliance (SHASA), network company Essential Energy, and technology company Zepben.
Continue readingOne Step Off The Grid – ANU Solar for Rentals
How can we share the benefits of rooftop solar with the millions of Australian who don’t own a roof?
In greater Sydney, alone, as One Step Off The Grid has reported, 2017 census data showed nine council areas had more than half of residents “locked out” of solar by their rental status. And in North Sydney, almost three-quarters of residents couldn’t access solar due to being renters or living in apartment buildings.
The quest to make solar available to renters in Australia is the focus of a new project led by researchers at Australian National University and will tackle the problem at a policy level, by providing governments with evidence of what interventions are likely to succeed.
Continue readingThe Fifth Estate – Tackling solar for renters
A series of grants totaling over half a million dollars have been awarded to researchers from four institutions to delve into making Australia’s energy markets more fair and equitable.
“These projects have each demonstrated the potential to make significant positive impact in areas where consumers are currently not best served by the energy system,” Energy Consumers Australia chief executive officer Lynne Gallagher said.
With Australians who live in rental properties seven times less likely to have rooftop solar, researchers from Australian National University (ANU) have been granted $77,070 to discover and advise on what policies will best address the discrepancy.
Continue readingNew project: Policies for solar for rentals
Exploring ways for renters to benefit from solar power and renewable energy transition is the focus of a new project at The Australian National University (ANU).
Led by Dr Lee White, Mara Hammerle and Dr Bjorn Sturmberg, the project, How can we involve renters in the renewable energy transition in Australia? has secured funding from Energy Consumers Australia.
New project: Southcoast Microgrid Reliability Feasibility (SµRF)
The Battery Storage and Grid Integration Program at the Australian National University, along with project partners Southcoast Health and Sustainability Alliance, network operator Essential Energy, and technology company Zepben, are delighted by news of successful project funding under the Regional and Remote Communities Reliability Fund (RRCRF) – microgrids 2020-21.
The Southcoast Microgrid Reliability Feasibility (SµRF) project will engage NSW South Coast Eurobodalla residents, businesses, and Essential Energy in planning the transition from a bushfire exposed grid to a resilient grid of islandable microgrids.
The project partners will receive $3.125M in funding over three years under the RRCRF to:
- conduct community-led design of future energy systems, quantifying the value of reliability;
- model the operation of eight microgrids across the region using high-resolution monitoring data and develop a holistic assessment of implementation costs; and
- explore business models and regulatory innovations to improve feasibility implementation.
DERlab video
An introductory video to the DERlab
Obey your master … how algorithms can steer a neighbourhood battery
Ecogeneration interview about our Nature Energy paper on battery algorithms
Research shows that if energy professionals and customers agree on what they expect a community battery to do, engineers can write performance algorithms to suit those objectives.
Can you trust a battery to make the best decisions about when to charge and discharge? It depends who owns it, for a start, but most of all it depends who wrote the code that is its book of commands.
As community batteries are deployed to manage solar exports and calm grid disturbances, researchers at the Australian National University wanted to understand the degree to which these assets can be bent to serve their owners or the communities they are plonked in the middle of.
“How an electric vehicle or a battery operates in your home, these things are governed by algorithms coded up by humans,” says ANU battery storage and grid integration research leader Bjorn Sturmberg. “They are not governed by the physics of spinning machines, which is traditionally what we have built our energy system around.”
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